We did it! On July 10, 2009, last Friday, at 14.45 hrs. Marston and I got married! We took the plunge almost 5 years after we first met.

So I’m officially a married woman now!! I said ‘I do’, we’re wearing wedding rings and his last name has been added to mine. He can call me ‘his wife’ now and I can call him ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my boyfriend’. How strange is this? It’s something we both have to get used to obviously, but one thing is certain though….I am one happy happy woman!

The wedding ceremony was perfect! We got married at the city hall (‘Stadhuis’) of my hometown Rotterdam. We had eight guests total: my parents, my brother, my cousin, my godparents and their two kids.

Unfortunately Marston’s family couldn’t join us. They live in California and Hawaii and we didn’t give them much time to prepare for a trip to Europe. It all happened very fast, the reason behind this you will find out later… .... (No, I’m not pregnant)

Even though the ceremony was small, there were still lots of things to arrange or get done beforehand.

In March (after he proposed in Paris), I went to city hall to announce our upcoming wedding. Unfortunately it took more than just letting them know and filling out a few papers. Because Marston has an American passport and a Dutch residency permit but not a Dutch passport, we had to fill out tons of papers. We even had to require papers (like his birth certificate and proof that he’s not already married) from the US and have these notarized there as well. We (get this!) even had to get formal permission from the Dutch foreign police. They somehow looked into our relationship to see if it is ‘real’. This process all together took about six weeks. The whole thing was just a pain in the *ss…

Finally, in the beginning of June, we received the official notification that we had their ‘permission’ to get married. After hearing this news, I went straight to city hall to take the next step: to pick the ‘ondertrouw’ date. Ondertrouw means that you register your marriage application at city hall. Then on Tuesday June 23 we did indeed register: we went through the necessary documents and signed. After that we picked the wedding date: July 10 and to celebrate (and for other reasons) we left for Denmark for a week.

When we came back from Copenhagen a few things needed to be arranged of course:

– We had to order the flowers: my bouquet, his corsage and the guest corsages (we ended up picking simple, but beautiful pink and white roses named ‘Hope’).

– We had to look for an affordable notary to setup a pre-nup (we found him and signed the papers two days before the wedding).

– We had to find an affordable photographer (we found him through a friend of mine. Great photographer and great pictures!).

– We had to find a nice and unique place for dinner (we ended up going to the Euromast, a huge tower of 183 meters high that overlooks the city and is close to our apartment).

– We had to make ourselves look decent (Marston went to the barbershop, I had my eyebrows done and also had a manicure and pedicure. Thankfully we already had purchased our outfits a few weeks ago, so we didn’t need to ‘worry’ about that).

The day itself started with some rain (after weeks of having sun), but thankfully it cleared up around noon. It was a sunny and lovely afternoon!

The ceremony went smoothly. I was a little nervous (I think you can tell my looking at the pictures!), but of course there was nothing to worry about. The guy who married us (no clue to how you call him) did the ceremony in both Dutch as English. His English was pretty bad (the pronunciation mostly), but he made up for it my making little jokes here and there. After we said‘I do’ (literally, that part was in English!) we signed the official document, the witnesses did he same and that was it! We were done!

After the ceremony we had a photo shoot in the city hall garden. Taking pictures of ten (crazy) people is a task, but I think the pictures turned out well!

Then after we had enough pictures, we all went to the Euromast for dinner. People don’t just go there for the amazing view, but also for the unique restaurant and hotel. We actually live right by it, which made the whole thing extra special. But yeah, it’s high…so if you’re afraid of heights, I don’t advise you to go there. The food however is good! We had a very good dinner with excellent service. It was a good choice.

Finally we ended the eventful day with champagne, cake, music and presents at my parents’ house.
It was such a happy day!

Next year (probably at the exact same day!) we will have a second ceremony at ch
urch with Marston’s family and friends from the U.S. present as well! Why party once if you can party twice, right?

See ALL the pictures here on Flickr! I’ve put them all in a collection in different sets (also before and after the official ceremony).